"The Spirit of 76" 



,IA \;! -I! I A 



"La Fayette" 



Adii I '.".SI':, lie! 1 \ (.' i I li i M i I M (• !. Ik- 

Ouill Clnl> of \U'w York at its 
inectiip.' oi !--.l,,ii.n« 19th. 1907 




WASHINGTON AND LA FAYETTE. 




"The Spirit of 76" 



BY 



JAMES H. CANFIELD 



La Fayette" 

BY 

HENRY D. ESTABROOK 



Addresses delivered before the 
Quill Club of New York at its 
meeting of February 19tli, 1907 

Printed by order of the Club 






In escliaage 
MAR 2 1916 



j THE SPIRIT OF 76. 

b 

5" It is a very pleasant task which has been assigned to 

- me this evening, that of preparing the way for my elo- 
Ql quent friend who is to delight you with what I am sure 
will be a brilliant portrayal of one of the most distin- 
guished founders of our Republic. During four years 
of educational administration in Nebraska, Mr. Esta- 
brook was one of our Regents, or trustees, and I learned 
to lean heavily upon him as a support which never failed. 
I am glad of this opportunity to testify to his unusual 
intelligence, faithfulness and loyalty in all University 
affairs. The people of that western commonwealth still 
owe him a very distinct debt of gratitude for the large 
and generous service which he then rendered, and my 
personal and official obligation to him was as great as it 
was manifest. I beg leave to welcome him to this as- 
sembly, as I have already welcomed him to the city, as 
an American of a type and character all too sadly needed 
and all too rarely met. 

There is a certain phase of our history most surely 
worthy of profound study, without some knowledge of 
which we may search in vain for a thread to lead us 
through the labyrinth of later days. Every moment de- 
voted to its consideration throws new light upon all our 
later struggles. The results of this study are such as 
to give us, at the same time, hope and courage and fear, 
'it is full of glory, it is full of shame, it is full of re- 
proach, it is full of encouragement, it is full of warning. 
It is something in our past which is more commanding 
than the details of our strife with savage nature or with 
either savage or civilized man. It is that which gives 
vital force to the life of our people. It is what perhaps 
we may vaguely call the genius of American institu- 



tions. Popularly it is known as "The Spirit of 'jd!' 

Take for illustration such a movement as the Revolu- 
tionary movement, which though sudden and even some- 
what unexpected in its actual manifestation, was not 
the offspring of a mere passing impulse. Nor are you 
for a moment to imagine that it was founded upon a tup- 
penny tea tax — a most inadequate explanation. Much 
more than that was needed to carry our ancestors 
through the long and dreary days of that painful conflict. 
There are material facts enough in those years of al- 
most hopeless struggle — events which quicken the pulse 
and thrill the nerves and even dim the eyes in the mere 
recital. The smoke of burning Charlestown, the dark- 
ness of the night of the Delaware crossing, the winter 
of frightful suffering at Valley Forge,, the marches and 
countermarches in Virginia and in the Carolinas, the 
utterly worthless paper money, the shameless veniality 
and profligacy and misrule of men in high places, the 
scant military stores — in which barrels of sand were 
more than once marked "gunpowder" to encourage the 
troops, the final surrender at Yorktown — and the mud- 
spattered, foam-flecked couriers who bore the glad tid- 
ings through village and town ; all these we know and 
have known for many a year. But there is still a ques- 
tion as to whether we understand, and rightly and fully 
understand, the spirit which lay back of all this, which 
maintained the struggle in the face of such tremendous 
odds, which filled the shattered ranks of the army, which 
gave the conflict its true meaning, and which pushed 
bravely and insistently onward until a goal was reached 
which the most prophetic had not seen in their brightest 
visions and which caused a republic to spring out of a 
movement which we must admit at the outset simply 
sought relief from unjust legislation. And yet it was 



this spirit which shaped the entire conflict and which di- 
rected all the material forces. That it was greater and 
more powerful than the material forces may be seen at 
a single glance. When compared with the importance of 
the questions decided, which were the real victories won 
in that Valley of Decision, which were the actual ad- 
vances made, which involved principles then perhaps for 
the first time in the history of the world clearly expressed, 
and which we have never ceased to maintain and defend 
— when compared with all this, the instrumentalities seem 
even pitiful. There were but 2,400 Americans at Tren- 
ton, less than 6,000 English surrendered at Saratoga, 
Lincoln had less than 2,000 men at the siege of Charles- 
town, Cornwallis fought the battle of Camden with but 
2,000 and the entire force which surrendered at York- 
town was only 7,000. Such battles are not more than 
skirmishes when compared with the work on the French 
frontier during the French Revolution, or with the cam- 
paigns of the first Napoleon, or with the forces engaged 
in the Franco-Prussian War, or with those engaged in 
the Civil War in this country. It seems clear then, that 
there must have been some great and overmastering im- 
pulse, some all-inspiring motive, some deep-seated pur- 
pose, some dominant principle; or neither from the co- 
lonial life in which men were trained and developed for 
such a time and for such trials, nor from the white heat 
of the conflict itself, could have been shaped results so 
grand and so enduring. 

You will find this all the more surprising, though not 
inexplicable, when you remember what a simple-minded 
and simple-mannered folk our ancestors were. There 
was sufficient of the heroic and philosophic in them all, 
but as a race they were neither heroes nor philosophers. 
No matter from what stock they sprang, they were 



largely of the middle class ; living in a quiet way, in what 
we, their somewhat faster and less reverent descendants, 
might call a rather humdrum way, supported largely by 
the labor of their own hands, with class distinctions great- 
ly modified although they had not yet disappeared, obso- 
lescent though not yet obsolete ; for the great part hav- 
ing no more apparent ambition than to secure for them- 
selves the immediate advantages of life in the New 
World, and for their children the possibility of expansion 
without deprivation and without the necessity of swarm- 
ing again from the hive. I am not sure that we over- 
rate the devotion to specific principles of that earlier day, 
certainly I have no desire to abate in the slightest the 
well-deserved praise of our fathers in the flesh. They 
had a strength of purpose and a purity of character and 
grip and grit which sometimes put us to the shame in 
the comparison and make us feel as though our own 
moral sinews were rather flabby. But after all they were 
no mere theorists, they were no knights-errant with a 
lofty mission constantly heralded to the world, they were 
no hobby-riders. They attacked original sin with hard 
blows, but they were just as sturdy in their dealings with 
the primaeval forest or with the original savage. They 
drove out Roger Williams, but this was quite as much 
because he questioned their title to their land as because 
he differed with them in religion, or they thought had 
little or none of his own. They punished the Quakers, 
but this was really because disorder in the colony was 
opposed to thrift and they felt that the situation demand- 
ed that men should work as well as pray — and just then 
the Quakers seemed only inclined toward the latter. They 
themselves admitted^ very frankly that they came to this 
country not only to cultivate religion but to cultivate the 
soil as well, not only to worship God but to trade and to 



catch fish. I am one of those who beheve that the rigid- 
ity of Puritan faith and the simpHcity of Puritan life and 
the austerity of Puritan manners and the intensity of 
Puritan character furnished this nation with about all the 
moral backbone it ever possessed; but I am also one of 
those who feel obliged to admit that the Puritans made 
sharp bargains with the simple Hollanders, and swapped 
the Indians out of their entire inheritance. The fact is 
that our Puritan progenitors were peculiar pocket-book 
people, they were eminently practical, they had all the 
staying and abiding and conservative traits of the Eng- 
lish from which thev sprang ; but when the full time came 
they pledged their lives and their fortunes and their 
sacred honor to the maintenance of an idea, and they 
grandly redeemed the pledge. 

It is only proper to remind you right here that the 
Puritans were not the only people in the country at the 
outbreak of the Revolution, nor were the Puritans the 
only people who possessed the genius which was to 
warm a slumbering continent into new life, nor was 
this genius restricted to the English-speaking race. 
When the mad tempest of war finally broke on our east- 
ern coast, none were more loyal, none were more hope- 
ful, none were more patient, none were more unselfish, 
none were more patriotic than our kinsmen from Hol- 
land and Germany and our neighbors from France. 
Whatever the impulse was, it seemed to belong to all. 
The spirit which brooded so mightily over the chaotic 
elements and which was destined to bring light out of 
darkness and order out of confusion and strength out of 
weakness, was common to all. A most interesting ques- 
tion is whence had this spirit come, what had given It 
birth, under what conditions had it been implanted in the 
hearts of these largely unconscious pioneers of freedom. 



The answer to this will only be found when we recall 
again the entire dependence of the present upon the past, 
will only be found when we make a careful study of 
that past, may be found within the circle of the century 
one of whose most striking movements was emigration 
to this almost unknown land. 

The pace of the world has always been so swift, so 
much has always been compressed into a hundred years, 
that at times it seems difficult to differentiate one century 
from another in the richness and fullness of its experi- 
ence. Yet it is hard to name a century more prolific 
in great events than the one just named, more full of 
prophecy, more fruitful in magnificent scheming, more 
crowned with enthusiasm. The art of printing had just 
been discovered and was beginning to manifest its mar- 
velous power. Great libraries were being brought to- 
gether and for the first time were ministering somewhat 
adequately to scholastic needs, the revival of learning was 
quickening and uplifting all intellectual life. As Taine, 
ever brilliant, puts it, "For the first time men opened their 
eyes and saw," The discovery of this continent fired 
popular imagination as it had never been fired before. 
Men thronged the seas under every conceivable banner, 
seeking the New World. And while all was thus fervid 
and thus tenselv strained, the Reformation, which you 
will recall as simply a grand struggle of the human 
mind for its own freedom — the Reformation started 
suddenly into life in Germany, and spreading swiftly 
through the north and west, stirred with tumultuous 
force the mind of all Christendom. That was the 
flash which touched with its white light not only kings 
and courtiers, bishops and scholars, but that which was 
far better — the vast common life of nations. This it was 
which made an age until now munificent, instantly heroic. 

8 



Following this or concurrent with it, and largely because 
of this, came a swift advance of the power of the people, 
a decadence of all past authority, a weakening of the rule 
of mere force, a constant and intelligent seeking after 
that legitimate sovereignty which represents the best 
there is of national existence, the will of the people. All 
this new life was full of warmth and emotion and ideal- 
ism, yet it was vigorous and energetic and practical and 
constructive. It really seemed inspired, and before its 
impetuous onset all that was old and weak and obstruc- 
tive gave way. The century was full to overflowing 
with philosophy and learning and genius and statesman- 
ship — but it was also full of industry ; and all these other 
qualities were constantly active, constantly at work, mag- 
nificently at work — all inspiring to great enterprises, all 
animated by vast hopes, all willing and anxious to under- 
take imperial plans. 

You know there are times when there seems to be a 
general movement of the popular mind, possibly even of 
the world-mind, in a given direction. We speak of cer- 
tain tendencies as "in the air" — we move on certain lines 
by a common impulse. I wish I could give you a clear 
impression of all that was "in the air" during this won- 
derful period. Think of the familiar names of men and 
of the familiar incidents which crowd the pages of that 
period of history, of what all these suggest, of the possi- 
ble connection of all these with the New World, of the 
possible influence of all these upon the life in the New 
World. Michael Angelo died in the same year in which 
Laudonnierre made his fatal settlement in the south, 
and less than a year before the settlement at St. Aug- 
ustine. Titian lived until 1576. Galileo was condemned 
only five years before Harvard College was founded. 
The great Gun Powder Plot was concocted and thwarted 



only two years before the settlement of Jamestown. 
Cervantes published Don Quixote, a book which was 
destined to laugh the last traces of feudalism and chiv- 
alry out of existence, just before John Smith reached 
Virginia. Both Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the 
samiC day, less than four years before the landing on the 
Massachusetts coast ; and the first edition of the works 
of the great dramatist appeared in the year of the settle- 
ment at Plymouth. It was the very next autumn that 
Wentworth rose in Parliament and declared that the only 
issue before the English people was that the liberties, 
franchises, privileges and jurisdictions of Parliament are 
the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of 
all subjects of England — and what rebel colonist would 
ever want a better text or better authority than that ! 
Four years later began the administration of that grand- 
est of Cardinals and greatest of statesmen, Richelieu. 
Kepler — ardent, restless, burning to distinguish himself — 
finished his great work and laid down in death when 
Winthrop was governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
Roger Williams went down to Rhode Island not quite 
two years before the Scotch in their solemn league and 
covenant consecrated all they had and were to the cause 
of religious freedom — and only two years later the Long 
Parliament began its fateful session. Moliere was never 
more brilliant than in the year in which honest and testy 
one-legged Peter Stuyvesant was compelled by his weak 
fortifications and his weaker Council to surrender New 
Amsterdam to the English. Racine lived long enough to 
make a study of witchcraft in Massachusetts. Rubens, 
Rembrandt, Vandyke and Claude Lorrane were winning 
imperishable renown when Rhode Island and Connecticut 
and the Carolinas were struggling for charter rights and 
even for continued existence. Newton made his great 

10 



discovery and his equally great system known to the 
world in the year of the hiding of the Connecticut char- 
ter. Leibnitz discovered the differential calculus just as 
Phillip of Narragansett gave up the unequal struggle 
with the white man. Milton, who had written most stir- 
ring words in behalf of English freedom, died just as 
Edmund Andrus was made a royal governor and insti- 
tuted a short-lived English tyranny in New England. 
Descartes, whose philosophy forms one of the great land- 
marks in the history of free thought, was at the very 
height of his power and reputation when the Catholics 
settled in Maryland. Grotius, the philosopher, jurist and 
statesman, was leader of the diplomatic service of Sweden 
when the first printing press was set up at Cambridge. 
Spinoza, who was long proscribed because of his bold 
and unconquerable love of truth, died just at the close of 
Bacon's rebellion. Now I do not wish you to look for 
any close connection between these ; they are not like 
links in a chain, they are not related as cause and effect, 
there is no logical sequence. But they will serve to show 
you the stir and stress and strife of that period, a period 
of struggle with powers invisible, with the material 
world, and with man's very self. 

But there were closer relations than these. Suppose 
we take the century nearest the more active colonial life 
of this country, that which closed with the subjection of 
New Netherlands, the year when the eastern and north- 
ern portion of our present national domain passed under 
the control of the English, the year 1664: and let us set 
as the initial date, the accession of Elizabeth in 1558. 
What mighty events are compressed between these two ! 
There is the marvelous reign of the great Queen — great 
in spite of shameless mendacity, ungovernable passion, 
and base ingratitude : the coming in of the Stuarts, 

11 



headed by one who was shrewdly called the wisest fool 
in all Christendom ; the revolt of Hampden and the ride 
of King Pym and the rise of the Commons ; the downfall 
of Charles the First, most exemplary and most stupidly 
obstinate of monarchs ; Cromwell and the Protectorate ; 
and the final triumph of parliamentary and constitu- 
tional government. Side by side with this you must 
place the great Protestant struggle in France, the massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew, the rise and reign of Henry of 
Navarre, pitiful Louis XHI., a king in name only with 
Richelieu as real master of the destinies of France, 
Mazarin, the philosophic statesman and the instructor of 
the great Louis, and some of the promise of his pupil. 
Southward rises the forty years' reign of Philip the Sec- 
ond, who with all his power lost on both sea and land, 
and with whose death Spain began a swift decline. The 
Netherlands revolted. Sweden awoke from its lethargy 
and was regenerated and redeemed. Within the limits 
of the century thus defined came the entire Thirty Years' 
War, full of sorrow and sacrifice and heroism, closing in 
the welcome Treaty of Westphalia. The rude Holland- 
ers rescued their land from the ocean, wrought within 
that scanty basin a most majestic history, and made their 
country the center of a commerce whose sails whitened 
every known sea and whose merchants circled the globe. 
Now remember that right out of the midst of that 
century, rent with war and red with strife, came the early 
settlers of America. Fresh from this constant strife, 
tempered by conflict, toughened in every sinew and fiber, 
with all the hope and zeal and splendid energy of that 
age coursing hot and almost riotous in veins and arteries, 
they sought the New World. Think of the English. 
There were men in these colonies who had sailed with 
Frobisher and Drake; who had filled the camps along 

12 



the coast and kindled the watchfires at the approach of 
the great Armada; who remembered how the Queen in 
her golden speech to her last Parliament had won her 
way back to the hearts of her people. There were men 
in these colonies who had served under Cromwell, who 
had seen the royal line broken and the royal banner 
trailed in the dust at Nasby and Marsten Moor, who had 
witnessed the faithful execution of the fundamental pro- 
vision of that greater charter — the right to behead a 
king. Doubtless you all remember how Endicott at 
Salem cut the red cross out of the old banner of Eng- 
land, but he was only delivering one last home thrust at 
the hated religion of Spain. The Catholics of Maryland 
in accepting religious freedom were simply exemplify- 
ing the spirit of their fathers who fought for free Eng- 
land against an Armada which a Catholic had armed and 
a Pope had blessed. Wadsworth, in hiding the Con- 
necticut charter, was only following the example and the 
leadership of the men who had resisted the ship-money 
and had refused benevolences. 

Take the Huguenots. There was not a more generally 
influential, cultivated, dependable class in all America. 
The movement which they represented began in the cities, 
in the capital of France, in the universities and schools 
of learning. Nobles like Conde and CoHgni were its 
leaders. M'arguerite of Navarre had been its charmed 
and charming centre. In its ranks were nearly all the 
skilled artisans of France. These had given their coun- 
try the most extensive and the most renowned manufac- 
tures which the world then knew. The commerce of the 
kingdom was largely in their hands. They were graceful 
and brave, pliant yet with a temper like steel, and they 
brought out of their home-conflict a nerve and an impetu- 
osity which played a magnificent part on this side of the 

13 



Atlantic. Three presidents of the Continental Congress 
were of this Hneage. Fanuel, whose hall was the "cradle 
of liberty," was the son of a Huguenot. Marion, the 
swamp fox, was the son of another. Huger and Jay and 
Laurens and Bayard and Gallatin^all these and more 
were given us by the blind zeal and bigoted partisanship 
which revoked the Edict of Nantes and harried all 
France until the most serviceable portion of its popula- 
tion had become exiles and strangers, seeking a far 
country. 

Then there were the Hollanders, who came out from 
under the moulding hand of William the Silent. First 
of all sovereigns, first of all statesmen, had he sought to 
build up a great middle class, a strong third party. 
Patient, industrious, patriotic; trained in the common 
schools in which they then led the world ; full of Protes- 
tant fervor and inheriting the old Teutonic spirit of indi- 
vidual freedom — these were the men who laid so well the 
foundations of the great future metropolis. Think of 
the whirlwind of strife which their ancestors had known. 
The Atlantic for sixty years was almost hidden with the 
smoke of their guns — now down under the shadow of 
Gibraltar, and again in the very streets of Antwerp and 
Leyden; fighting from every window, and when they 
had given their land back to the sea, fighting from the 
tree-tops. Think of their love of liberty and the sacri- 
fices which they had made for it, through whole genera- 
tions ; and then perhaps for the first time you will begin 
to understand the spirit and the temper which they 
brought to the little village and the pleasant boueries 
along the banks of the majestic Hudson. 

What came with the Swedes? Gustavus Adolphus, a 
monarch almost worshiped by his people, had raised 
Sweden to a signal, point of power in European affairs. 

14 



With the first regular organized army known upon the 
Continent — the first army not made up of mercenaries, 
the first armv with a regular commissary — he swept into 
the current of the Thirty Years' War most gallantly, 
carrying all before him. His followers prayed where 
others plundered and they sang where others swore. 
They dwelt under the shadow of their own lances and 
they cooked their food in the ashes of conquered towns. 
They fought for liberty and for Protestantism, and they 
won. Their king gathered in fortresses as a reaper 
gathers sheaves. Blind Catholicism laughed when it 
heard of his landing on the northern coast and sneered 
that this snow-king- would soon melt before the rays of 
the imperial sun. But blind Catholicism fled in wild dis- 
may as he approached. Before he took up this, his last 
work — and he said with prophetic utterance, "There is 
now no rest for me save the eternal" — he had restored 
order to his kingdom, he had given great encouragement 
to education, he had advanced the general welfare of 
his people, and he had sent out the colony which gave 
to the west shore of the Delaware the name of their 
beloved land. After his death in that fatal fog at Lutzen, 
Oxensteirn, his favorite minister, gave to these pioneers 
much encouragement and aid, and though they were soon 
absorbed in New Netherlands you can easily see what 
added impulse came in the lines of thoughtful endeavor, 
independent action, and simple, manly life. 

Out of this century of strife, this generation of blood- 
shed, came also the Germans. It is stated as an historical 
fact that during that war three-fourths of the people 
perished and three-fourths of the dwellings were de- 
stroyed. But the independent spirit which made these 
people the great Protest-ants of the world was not 
touched — much less was it disheartened or dismayed. 

15 



The fire that ran along the ground, the iron hail that 
broke the branches of every tree, had only burned and 
beaten deeper and deeper into their minds and hearts 
courage and purpose and hope. In the New World was 
opportunity, in the New World were possibilities : and 
they chose the wilderness of God across the seas rather 
than the wilderness which man had made of the dear 
Fatherland, the home of the Teuton race. 

I am wondering whether, after all, you see what I 
mean, what I am striving in a very inadequate way to 
suggest. No matter whence they came, whether from 
hot work at Edgehill or at Taunton, from facing 
Claverhouse and his dragoons at Loudon Hill or Mon- 
mouth at Bothwell Brig, from La Rochelle or the Ga- 
ronne, from the marshes of Holland or from the snowy 
fields of Sweden, from plains swept by the guns of 
Tilly and Wallenstein or from the councils of Church 
and State, these forefathers of ours came out of a cen- 
tury of marvelous and widespread and intense activity of 
both mind and body, a century rich in genius and cre- 
ative power ; a century in which civil, mental and relig- 
ious freedom advanced with strides never before known. 
This was the birthplace and the birthright of the Ameri- 
can spirit, which has become the spirit of western civili- 
zation ; this was the seed-time of individual independence 
and individual accountability and individual power. 
Planted in the soil of the New World, it had been grow- 
ing silently but luxuriously for a century and a half 
before, at Concord, the embattled farmers fired the shot 
which echoed 'round the world. Born of struggle, endur- 
ance, aspiration, achievement ; on this continent God gave 
it room, incentive, training. This, gentlemen, is our 
inheritance and our inspiration — this is "The Spirit 
of '76." 

16 



LA FAYETTE 

Of course, by this time his fellow-members of the 
Quill Club know my friend Canfield well enough to take 
what he says not simply with a grain of salt, but abso- 
lutely in pickle. I know him of old. As he says, I was 
once a regent of the Nebraska University, of which insti- 
tution, during the time, he was the Chancellor. To pre- 
pare myself for the duties of my office I looked up the 
word "regent" in the dictionary. It means a governor 
or ruler; but, like Mark Twain when he was suffering 
with a carbuncle and found that the dictionary defined 
"carbuncle" as a "precious jewel," I deprecate humor in 
a dictionary. For I found that so far from being a gov- 
ernor or ruler, my sole function as regent was to ascer- 
tain exactly what Canfield wanted and vote for it accord- 
ingly. He dominated everybody and rose superior to 
everything, and to-night has risen superior to truth itself. 
Was there ever a more perfidious betrayal of a friend 
than his introduction of me to this distinguished audi- 
ence? 

In his letter inviting, or rather ordering, me to speak 
here this evening, Mr. Canfield was frank enough to 
insinuate that my only remuneration would be the un- 
usual privilege of associating for a little while with some 
people strictly respectable, but that it was useless for me 
to aspire to membership in the Quill Club because — well, 
because a line had to be drawn somewhere. He said 
that the Club had been organized by the editors of relig- 
ious weeklies in the city of New York, who possibly 
knew that the individual quill of a religious editor was 
not a formidable weapon against the world, the flesh and 
the devil, but who thought maybe by combining their 
quills they could present to the common enemy chevaux 

17 



de frise that would make the fretful porcupine look like 
a pen-rack. There is an inference that the religious 
editors found themselves lonesome, for it was not long 
before they took in some other editors not quite so relig- 
ious, and then finally, in a moment of abandon, took in 
the librarians. "And there they stopped," says Mr. Can- 
field ; and it is high time they did, for unless Mr. Car- 
negie is headed off by somebody this last move will cer- 
tainly insure to the Quill Club a numerous membership ; 
though judging the ilk by what I know of Canfield it 
reconciles me somewhat to my exclusion. 

But it is wonderful how the habit of domination still 
clings to brother Canfield, for, as I say, he not only sum- 
moned me to appear before you this evening, but directed 
that my speech should be appropriate to the month of 
February and Washington's Birthday — not about Wash- 
ington, but apropos of Washington. He not only dic- 
tated my subject, but I am persuaded would have dic- 
tated my speech if I would have stood for it. I once told 
the people of Nebraska that Chancellor Canfield had the 
physique of a sawed-off Hercules and the static energy 
of dynamite. For sheer strenuosity he out-teddies 
Roosevelt, and / think is a pernicious example to the 
youth of any institution with which he is connected. 
This age is too strenuous. It needs tranquilizing and 
Canfield is no man for such a job. 

The mandatory but encouraging remark made to a 
party of the name of Eli (whether to him of the Bible, 
or to him with the patronymic of Perkins, I wot not), to 
"get there, Eli!" has been hurled at every youth in this 
country with the least symptom of ambition. It is a 
o-enuine Americanism, in line with hustler and hummer 
and other words signifying inordinate activity and un- 
comfortable energy. Whether a man is running for a 

18 



street car or only for an office, he is admonished to get 
there. It is desirable, of course, that he get there with 
both feet; otherwise his foothold is uncertain, and his 
tenure as precarious as that of the old fellow Myron 
Reed tells about — one foot in the grave and the other on 
a banana peel. The word "there" doubtless represents 
a goal of attainment; but it is a vague word, and won- 
derfully illusive. Whereabouts is "there"? What do 
we know of the locus in quo, as the lawyers say? It may 
be that, in the words of the gospel hymn, "there" is "a 
land that is fairer than day" ; but we know nothing of its 
metes or bounds, or latitude or longitude, or, indeed, if 
it is on this planet or not. Like the fabled island, it 
seems to recede precisely as it is approached. The poor 
devil delving in a ditch hopes one day for a job that will 
keep him from the poorhouse. If he hustles he may get 
there, but he will not be satisfied. The business or pro- 
fessional man, in no danger of the poorhouse, neverthe- 
less longs for leisure to indulge some dormant fancy. 
If he is a hummer he may get there, but he will not be 
satisfied. The rich man, with both means and leisure, 
yearns also for fame. If he "humps" himself he may get 
there, but he will not be satisfied. The famous man 
wishes for a title of nobiHty. In some countries he may 
achieve it ; but he will not be satisfied. 

Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter : Fame, 
riches, title — every object of worldly ambition, is an 
ignis fatuus. 

And what is that ? An incandescent miasma. 

Do I, therefore, exclaim with the preacher: "Vanity, 
vanity, all is vanity"? There is not an ounce of pessi- 
mism in my composition, I mention this fact, this scien- 
tific and religious fact, not by way of exhortation or com- 
plaint; but simply because it explains a fact, known of 

19 



all men, and utilized by great men. For there is a moral 
quality to greatness which distinguishes it from clev- 
erness. 

Yes, the Almighty hath implanted in the human breast 
a divine unrest, which only finds its anodyne in minis- 
tering to others. Vainly the tentacles of our being clasp 
the favors of the world, dragging them into self; in the 
very delirium of gratified vanity there comes an apoc- 
alypse of self, and the naked soul shrivels in the glance 
of God ! Is it not, I say, divine that the penalty of self- 
ishness should be a nausea of self? 

"Shall I," asks Balzac, "shall I tell you how to make 
your way in the world ? You must plow through human- 
ity like a cannon ball, or glide through it like a pesti- 
lence." 

Dear old Balzac! prodigy of industry as you were of 
genius ! Did you, from the poverty of your garret, 
croak dire philosophies? Thank God, your religion was 
better than your creed ; for your self-devoted life has 
made you a way in the world higher than that of Napo- 
leon, the cannon ball ; or Robespierre, the pestilence ; you 
are, while language lasts, Shakespeare of France ! 

Look you! Men will of course make way for a can- 
non ball, but what pleasure does the cannon ball have in 
that? It is of iron, without sensibility. If it have a 
feeling it is a feeling of pride, which is harder than iron 
and a thousand times more cruel. Men will succumb to 
a pestilence, but what joy does the pestilence take in 
that? Its crown is a wreath of snakes, its breath the 
vapor of graves, its laugh the gibber of a corpse. 

Men and brethren, I have preached my sermon in 
advance. To take it out of the abstract of ethics into the 
concrete of experience, I propose to illustrate it by the 
life work of one man; not a genius, in the sense of that 

20 



mental bias we call genius, but a sane man, as Washing- 
ton was sane ; a good man, as Washington was good ; a 
man who, born to every extrinsic advantage for which 
we worldling-s moil — title, riches, social caste — flung all 
his birthrights to the wind, and then reconquered from 
the world the homaee of mankind, and from heaven the 
approval of Jehovah. History has enshrined him, 
humanity may not forget him, France calls him father. 
Surely America, in whose name and for whose sake he 
yielded the title of "Noble" for that of "man," bartered 
the coronet of a marquis for the toga of a citizen, giv- 
ing to the word citizen, indeed, a significance and glory — 
America, whose Washington clasped him to his heart of 
hearts, and called him son — surely America will recall 
him thus forever joined: Washington and La Fayette. 

How can I extract, condense, and fuse into the limits 
of this address the combined essence of his life and soul — 
a life crowded from vouth to age with heroisms, adven- 
tures, and romance; a soul, luminous and glorious with 
its love of right! I have felt as though I must bring 
here and read to you the entire correspondence between 
La Fayette and Washington; not for the effusive affec- 
tion shown by the young officer for his chieftain, but 
because his impetuous devotion penetrated that wonder- 
ful reserve which has baffled history, and led even so 
redoubted a patriot as Mr. Ingersoll to say : "Washing- 
ton has become a steel engraving." 

This correspondence shows him to have been a friend ; 
loyal, faithful, familiar, playful and tender as a father. 
My friends, it is difficult for youth to worship an abstrac- 
tion, or a steel engraving; and I ask no other evidence 
of the intensely human nature of George Washington, in 
all those qualities which make for comradery and good 
fellowship, than the intimate friendship between him and 

21 



two boys — most remarkable boys, with the brains to 
appreciate brains, the courage that demands courage, 
hearts that feed on a heart's emotion ; I mean young 
Hamilton and La Fayette. 

As far La Fayette's romance, that one exalted pas- 
sion which survived all vicissitudes and hung, like an 
aureola, above the clouds of every battle — it is a theme 
for song and story ! From field and camp, from forum 
and prison, La Fayette found time and means to write 
to the mistress of his heart such letters as no woman 
might read unmoved. And she, the child wife, fairest, 
gentlest, loveliest of womankind, became through the 
splendor of her hero's love the wisest, bravest, noblest, 
best. The reign of terror came, and with it those years 
of silence and separation ; the wife imprisoned in Paris, 
the husband in Olmiitz. What woman "attainted" of 
noble blood did not change her name, or suffer a mock 
divorce to escape, if might be, the scalpel of Dr. Guillo- 
tin? Not so the wife of La Fayette! If die she must, 
her death should be worthy the wife of such a husband. 
Her mother, sister, even the aged grandmother, frail, 
pitiful victims to the murderous knife, were gone — all 
gone ! But Robespierre was killed and she was saved. 
Yes, she was loosed from Paris, and like a homing dove 
flew straight to Olmiitz. Yes, freedom, sunlight, God's 
pure air once more were hers, and in that very hour she 
knocked at the dungeon of Austria and in the name of 
charity and love asked, begged, implored, to share the 
entombment of her husband. The boon was granted with 
the assurance that it must be forever. And here they 
lived, in a mephitic twilight, with rags for clothing, and 
prison fare for food, while months, which seemed years, 
rolled into years, which seemed eternities. Her health 
could not withstand this strain. La Fayette, too nobly 

22 



proud to ask one favor for himself, petitioned humbly 
that his wife might go and regain her strength. The 
leave was given, conditioned that she should not return. 
Need I assure you that she did not go? 

A few years after their deliverance by Napoleon this 
gracious woman died at the old chateau, attended by her 
husband. Everv act of her life had been a token of her 
love, but it was reserved for this last illness to reveal 
its height and depth and amazing plenitude. Her death 
was the transfiguration, the apotheosis of love. Poor 
La Fayette could onlv sit at her bedside and with stream- 
ing eyes and breaking heart listen to the gushing ecstasy 
of her affection. He assured her that she was loved and 
valued. "Nay!" she said, with wan coquetry, "I care 
not to be valued if I am only loved. Ah, my husband, 
there was a period when, after one of your returns from 
America, I felt myself so forcibly attracted to you that I 
thought I should faint every time you came into the 
room. I was possessed with the fear of annoying you, 
and tried to moderate my feelings. What gratitude I 
owe to God," she would repeat, ''that such passionate 
feelings should have been a duty!" Again in her deli- 
rium she had said: "If you do not find yourself suf- 
ficiently loved, lay the fault on God; He hath not given 
me more faculties than that I love you christianly, 
humanly, passionately." 

I have chosen these sentences from a letter of La Fay- 
ette, written in holy confidence to a friend. It seems 
almost sacrilege that it should ever have been published. 
And yet, not so. Perhaps, in years to come, some sub- 
limated Zola searching for realism, not in the muckheaps 
of humanity but in the hearts of God's children, will 
stumble onto it and learn how real, how true, how beauti- 
ful is human love when man is a moral hero and woman 

his good angel I 

23 



But it is not of La Fayette in the private, or home 
relationships of life that I am here to speak; it is of 
La Fayette as a moral force in the history of the world — 
the apparitor of law — the evangel of liberty — the minister 
of God's will. 

When Patrick Henry in the Virginia house of bur- 
gesses fulminated against King George I'll, all Europe 
smiled at the gasconade of a provincial orator. His 
voice scarce vibrated beyond the room in which his chal- 
lenge was so proudly uttered. But when on the field 
of Lexington our cannon spoke — then spoke an orator 
with a voice that rang until, like a sounding board, the 
vaulted sky rang back again ! It reverberated in the pal- 
aces of kings ; it echoed from the abysm of human 
wretchedness. Fellow citizens, within the palace that 
very hour there was born a Fear ; within the blackness of 
the abyss there was conceived a Hope. 

What did it portend? What did it not portend? It 
meant that just as the Decalogue issued from the thun- 
ders of Sinai, so out of the thunders of the Revolution 
should proceed the Constitution of the United States, 
both God-given, thunder-voiced, one in the name of 
morals, the other in the name of Liberty ! 

There was about the palace of the king of France at 
the outbreak of the American revolution this young 
nobleman of nineteen, the Marquis de La Fayette, whose 
Christian names are too numerous to mention. He was 
of the select coterie chosen by Marie Antoinette to per- 
form amateur theatricals in her boudoir and do quadrilles 
in costume. He had been educated to smile affably, and 
was a post-graduate in the art of bowing. His alma 
mater was a dancing schoool. Three years previously, 
that is, at the age of sixteen, he had married the daugh- 
ter of a duke, two years younger than himself. 

24 



I have often wondered if human nature was so anoma- 
lous in France that children, just entering their teens, 
could, with safety to the state, to say nothing of the 
dignity of the home, assume the relationship of mar- 
riage — that sublime Duality, as mysterious as the Trinity, 
and only less sacred. But the language of France con- 
tained no such word as "home" until, in modern times, 
the people of France appropriated the English word; 
in full reprisal, it seems to me, for all our depredations 
on their language. As for marriage among the nobility, 
it was then, as it is to-day, a matter of convention, the 
conveyance of hereditaments, the merger of estates, with 
love as a "contingent remainder." The court of France 
was utterly debauched. Arrogance had ceased to be 
arrogance, for the word implies some consciousness, at 
least, of another's being ; but the patricians of France had 
ruled so long, so absolute, and so unquestioned, that a 
southern planter could not have been more oblivious of 
a negro's entity than were the French noblesse of the 
existence of mere people. "The state 1" cried Louis XIV., 
"I am the state — L'etat, c'est Moi." 

The fortune of this youth was among the largest in 
Europe. He was accordingly fawned upon by courtiers 
and humored by the king. If he was thought to be 
somewhat erratic it was only because he had so little to 
say, whereas society expected him to prattle. He evinced, 
moreover, a predilection for his own wife. Except for 
these slight aberrations he appeared to be as sane, and 
almost as inane, as nobility in general. 

What unsuspected chord in the bosom of this supine 
aristocrat thrilled in unison with our cannon's roar? 
What did his soul behold in the glare of this first powder- 
flash ? God knows ! But surely the highest use of his- 
tory is to register the onward sweep of that "power 

25 



which makes for righteousness," and in the knowledge of 
its trend conform our efforts to- a divine intent. Thus, 
and thus only, may we perceive how mankind is urged 
forward and forever upward by an inexorable Will, 
whose special agency is some special Man. This belief is 
not mysticism ; it is all that redeems us from insanity. 
What happened, then, to La Fayette? What changed him 
in the twinkling of an eye? What was it that with 
strange compelling influence drew wise men from the 
East to worship at a manger ? It was a star — God's star 
of Bethlehem. What was it burst in the brain of Saul, 
blasting his vision in an agony of light ? It was a star — 
God's star of truth. What was it dawned on the soul 
of La Fayette, transfusing it with a purpose so sublime 
that henceforth all he had was offered a willing sacrifice 
to its accomplishment? It was a star — God's star of 
liberty. The Declaration of Independence — every sen- 
tence of which challenged the special privileges of his 
class, his own prerogatives, the title he bore, the right of 
his kingly government to exist — reflected the radiance of 
this rising sun and glowed with celestial fire. Like an 
asterisk of destiny, like its fellow of the East, this star 
of the West hung brightening above the cradle of men's 
hopes. He needs must follow it ! 

Accordingly, in April, of the year 1777, La Fayette 
set sail for America, in a vessel purchased and equipped 
by himself expressly for the journey. His resolution had 
been taken against the protest of all his friends (save 
only of her, the best of friends) and despite the inter- 
diction of his monarch. To circumvent the officers of 
the latter, he disguised himself as a courier, sleeping in 
stables from town to town until he reached the seacoast. 
But Louis XVI. was not to be baffled. He made it 
known to the American Congress that under no circum- 

26 



stances was the Marquis de La Fayette to receive a com- 
mission in its armies. Congress was not only willing 
to oblige the king of France, but, on its own account, 
thought that the quixotic services of the youthful mar- 
quis might prove more embarrassing than useful. 
Washington, moreover, shared the same opinion. He, 
poor man, had seen enough of foreign adventurers. So 
that, upon his arrival, La Fayette was graciously received, 
and as graciously ignored. It was under these circum- 
stances, and when his cherished plans had little hope of 
realization, that he addressed to Congress this brief but 
immortal note: 

"After the sacrifices I have made I have the right to 
exact two favors : one is to serve at my own expense, the 
other is to serve as a volunteer." 

There was no mistaking the temper or quality of the 
writer of these lines ! Washington relented at once. La 
Fayette received his commission and was appointed aide- 
de-camp to the commander-in-chief. "Thereupon," says 
a biographer, "began one of those tender and lasting 
friendships which exist between men who share great 
perils in defense of great principles." 

They reached the camp of Washingtoh in time to wit- 
ness a review of troops. There were ii,ooo men, possi- 
bly the forlornest ever calling themselves an army. Their 
munitions were wretched, their clothing ragged, and 
without any attempt at uniformity in cut or color; their 
evolutions were original, not to say grotesque. But they 
were Americans, and Washington was their leader. 

"We should feel some embarrassment," Washington 
observed, "in showing ourselves to an officer who has 
just left the armies of France." 

"Sir," replied La Fayette, "it is to learn and not to 
teach that I am here," 

27 



There spoke, not simply the modesty of the man, but 
if there be any design or meaning in the afiPairs of men, 
there spoke his destiny. He was here to learn! 

To learn what? To learn first of all, and all in all, 
Washington by heart! To learn his Godlike integrity of 
nature — his singleness of purpose and loyalty of faith — 
his wisdom — his justice — his goodness — his loving kind- 
ness — his prudence in counsel — his courage in action — his 
deep respect of self, combined with a divine unselfishness 
— his majesty of patience in defeat — his almost melan- 
choly joy in victory. To learn Washington was to learn 
what God meant when he made us in His image ; it was to 
know Man, the archetype ! Here was a provincial farmer 
whose pride of manhood, compared with the insolence of 
a king, soared into the empyrean, and yet who thought 
so little of the habilaments of power that all he asked of 
fortune or of fate were the tranquillity of Mt. Vernon 
and the obscurity of his home. What dignity could 
such greatness borrow from a title ! To imagine Wash- 
ington as a marquis was to imagine him with a ring in 
his nose. To know him as a man was to know what 
freedom meant, what free men were, and how to men like 
these "liberty or death" was the dread alternative. La 
Fayette renounced his marquisate and by act of Congress 
was made Citizen of America. 

It is not my intention to catalogue the services of La 
Fayette to this country, either as a soldier on our battle- 
fields or as a diplomat at the court of France. We teach 
our children to cherish those services in grateful and 
lasting memory. But there were two episodes of the war 
which so clearly reveal the character of this more than 
patriot that no estimate of him would be complete with- 
out referring to them. 

After the treachery of Arnold and his desertion to the 

28 



enemy, it transpired that the American forces under 
La Fayette found themselves confronting the English 
forces commanded by the traitor. One day a nuncio 
from the latter, under a flag of truce, sought an inter- 
view with La Fayette and handed him a letter. Learn- 
ing from whom the letter was sent, La Fayette returned 
it to the messenger unopened, stating that a communica- 
tion from any other British officer would be courteously 
received, but under no circumstances would he so much 
as open a letter from Mr. Arnold. "Mr. Arnold" was 
furious of course, and Americans were threatened with 
condign punishment. But when news of the incident 
reached the ears of Washington he wrote to La Fayette : 
"Your conduct upon every occasion meets my approba- 
tion, but in none more than in refusing to hold a corre- 
spondence with Arnold." 

Again, when La Fayette was sent south in Virgina 
to hold Cornwallis in check, the latter thought he had 
"the boy," as he called him, where he might not escape 
and so boasted in one of his reports. But it came to pass 
that "the boy" maneuvered him into a cul de sac. 

There seems to be little doubt that, in conjunction with 
the French fleet, a battle with the enemy could have been 
fought and won, and the French officers, naval and mili- 
tary, vehemently urged that, having cornered the Eng- 
lishman in Yorktown, it was due to La Fayette that he 
go further and achieve the glory of his final conquest. 
But the friend of Washington shook his head. "It is 
my duty," said he, "to guard the enemy until Washing- 
ton arrives; to him, to him alone, belongs the glory of 
this coup de ^race." 

If so be, at first, in the exuberance of youth, or the 
ennui of inaction, La Fayette took up liberty as a play- 
thing and diversion, it had now become the passion of his 

29 



life. Like Washington, he saw and realized the horror 
of African slavery. 

"Whatever may be the complexion of the enslaved," 
he writes to Mr. Adams, "does not, in my opinion, 
change the complexion of the crime, which is blacker 
than the face of any African." With a view to the ulti- 
mate extinction of this anomaly in our government, he 
founded an African colony on the island of Cayenne, 
hoping to educate the negro into a sense of freedom and 
individuality. But the task seemed hopeless. And, 
indeed, with the surrender of Cornwallis, he felt that his 
mission in the world had been accomplished. It was in 
this belief that he wrote to the French minister, Ver- 
gennes: "My great affair is settled. Humanity has 
gained its cause and liberty will never be without a 
refuge." 

How purblind is man, who cannot see beyond his eye- 
lashes nor prophesy from day to day what a day will 
bring forth ! His affairs were not settled ; his great 
affair was yet to be. For however great had been La 
Fayette's career in America (and no American will 
attempt to dwarf it), it was but an apprenticeship, a 
novitiate m the cause of liberty which all too soon was 
to rage tumultuous in the heart of France. For I repeat 
it : he was here to learn. Our war with England was not 
simply a political insurrection : it was an insurrection 
of ideas. 

When, therefore. La Fayette returned to France, it was 
not as an effigy of liberty, but as liberty's incendiary. 
His soul, like a torch, had been lighted at that star which 
first beckoned him away, and like a torch he flung it 
among the dry and sapless institutions of his country. 
The conflagration, the holocaust, the nameless crackling 
which ensued, we call the French Revolution. 



30 



I could not, if I would, portray the venomous writh- 
ings of this infernal orgasm; Carlyle has done it in a 
vertigo of words. What I would impress upon you is 
the fact that except for La Fayette this revolution never 
would have been. He it was who inspired it, ruled it, 
was ruled by it, emerged from it to confront the sordid 
splendor of Napoleon with the glory of Washington, sur- 
vived it — tyranny, anarchy, despotism — survived it all, 
and then died, like Moses, in sight of the promised land. 

France, I salute you! In the name of La Fayette, 
whom you sent to us : in the name of Washington, whom 
we returned to you, America joins with you, O sister of 
liberty, in that shout which yet shall engirdle the earth — 
"The King is dead! Long live the Republic!" 




